LEXINGTON, Ky. _ U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday it appears that Gov. Matt Bevin has lost the election for Kentucky governor, but he declined to say whether he thinks the Republican governor should concede.
"I'm sorry Matt came up short, but he had a good four years and all indications are, barring some dramatic reversal on the recanvass, we'll have a different governor in three weeks," McConnell said.
Gov.-elect Andy Beshear collected 5,189 votes more than Bevin, which was less than 0.5% of the 1.45 million votes cast Nov. 5. Bevin has requested a recanvass of vote totals, which will take place Thursday.
McConnell, speaking after a news conference at North American Stainless, said he wouldn't "give the governor advice," but noted that he won by a similarly close margin when he first ran for U.S. Senate in 1984. He beat U.S. Sen. Walter "Dee" Huddleston by 5,269 votes.
"We had a recanvass, they added it up and it didn't change and we all moved on," McConnell said.
Bevin sparked concern that he wouldn't accept the election results when he cited "irregularities" in last week's election without providing any evidence to support his claim. Among other things, he alleged that "thousands" of illegally cast absentee ballots were counted inappropriately. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes has said her office has seen no evidence of irregularities.
McConnell, the patriarch of the Kentucky Republican Party, is the latest to distance himself from Bevin's claims of irregularities. Republican lawmakers, spurred on by speculation that Bevin might try to contest the election in a complaint to the General Assembly, have said there is no need to seek legislative review of the election unless Bevin can produce significant evidence that voter fraud has occurred.
Some Republican lawmakers have called on Bevin to concede the election and drop the issue after the recanvass.
Bevin's loss made some in Washington, D.C., question whether McConnell is vulnerable in his 2020 reelection bid, despite Bevin's significant unpopularity and the fact that Republicans won all other races on the ballot.
When McConnell was asked if Bevin's loss has implications for his reelection bid, he said "we'll find out."
"The 2020 election is underway already. I saw a commercial from my likely opponent during a football game Saturday, so I think we've moved on to the next election," McConnell said.
He was referencing former Marine Corps pilot Amy McGrath, who has already raised more than $10 million in her effort to win the Democratic nomination to challenge McConnell.
Last week, it was a different potential opponent for McConnell, Kentucky Sports Radio host Matt Jones, who made headlines after he took a temporary leave from the radio show following a complaint filed by the Republican Party of Kentucky that alleged Jones was receiving illegal corporate contributions from iHeartRadio and Simon & Schuster because of his radio show and book tour.
Jones said last week that he had planned to announce he wasn't going to run for U.S. Senate, but then the Federal Election Commission complaint made him reconsider. McConnell refused to weigh in on Jones' potential candidacy.
"The Democrats haven't had a primary yet," McConnell said. "We'll see who the opponent is; we know which one has a lot of money."
